Julia Donaldson’s children’s stories are now established favourites on the stage as well as in print. Lydia Monks is the illustrator for What the Ladybird Heard and has been involved in Bek Palmer’s designs for the tour which is now in its second year. Graham Hubbard is the director and the catchy, folk idiom tunes are by Jon Fiber and Andy Shaw – of the aptly named Jollygoodtunes.

The audience comes into the auditorium to be faced with a toytown farm set – thatched farmhouse, cowshed, various outbuildings and a pond in front of a gate leading to the hilly landscape beyond. Emma Carroll is our storyteller and farmgirl Lily, introducing us to the characters with her Pied Piper-like flute.

Rosamund Hine makes a credible Farmer with Edward Way as farmhand Eddie and Matt Jopling as the slightly dim Raymond. Way and Jopling also play the burglars Hefty Hugh and Lanky Len whose attempt to steal the prize-winning cow is foiled by the ladybird of the title, a bright red spotted light which materialises at various places.

The cow and two cream-loving cats are conventional puppets, though the various farmyard animals are brought to life through an ingenious amalgamation of implements – the sheep is a fleece draped over a wheelbarrow, the horse is a bicycle and rake, the dog is a broom and so on. Very imaginative and I suspect that parents are likely to find domestic objects put to strange uses when the children return home.

What the Ladybird Heard runs at the Norwich Playhouse until 4 December.